I see you’re admiring my detox socks
The ‘detox’ question is pretty amusing.
In the majority of cases, producers and retailers contacted by the young scientists were forced to admit that they are renaming mundane things, like cleaning or brushing, as ‘detox’. They range in price from £1-2 for a detox drink to £36.95 for detox bath accessories.
Hahahaha – are there detox rubber duckies? Detox loofahs? Detox washcloths? All priced at ten times the normal rate because of their magical detox powers which the producers and retailers have admitted they don’t actually have?
The dossier shows that, while companies and individuals now use the claim ‘detox’ to promote everything from foot patches to hair straighteners, they are unable to provide reliable evidence or consistent explanations of what the ‘detox’ process is supposed to be.
Foot patches! Hahahahahahaha. ‘What’s that, Joe?’ ‘It’s my detox foot patch.’ ‘Oh yes, of course.’ Hair straighteners! Detox hair straighteners! Hahahahahahaha.
Three years ago they mentioned some other tools:
Our bodies have their own ‘detox’ mechanisms. The gut prevents bacteria and many toxins from entering the body…These processes do not occur more effectively as a result of taking “detox” tablets, wearing “detox” socks, having a “detox” body wrap, eating Nettle Root extract, drinking herbal infusions or “oxygenated” water, following a special “detox” diet…
Detox socks! What are they made of? Cashmere? A mix of cashmere and lamb’s wool? Platinum? Henbane? Whatever it is, I would love to have some darling detox socks. My feet are tragically toxic; I’m always noticing it. I would also love to have a detox body wrap and a whole tank full of ‘oxygenated’ water. Woonchoo?
And of course the Travoltas were big fans of “detox” and “purification”. Who knows, perhaps if they had taken their son to a proper doctor more often he might still be alive.
Heh, I love all these faux-sciencey commercial terms. Can someone explain to me what “pro-vitamin” means? Is it real?
As it happens, I have a tank full of oxygenated water. Whoo!
In all seriousness… while I’d bet that 99% of “detox” products are pure bunkum (though possibly pleasurable bunkum — finally an excuse to buy cashmere socks!) there’s just enough truth in there to really screw up somebody who’s going the detox route. St. John’s Wort, for instance, is a “detoxifying” herb. This turns out not to be so great. It’ll detoxify your medications right out of you:
http://whyfiles.org/150alt_med2/5.html
I’d bet that an aggressive regime of senna infusions would prevent some bacteria and toxins from entering the body. But I sure wouldn’t want to try it.
My advice is to make life easier by taking action to keep those old icky toxins from getting too close. No toxins, no detox. Easy and fun. I hear that nailing aluminum pie pans to the outside of the house will repel toxins and keep dangerous alien radio waves from getting into your head.
I used to have a tank full of oxygenated water, complete with fish! The noise from that damned air pump nearly drove us crazy, until we put it in the garage and drilled a hole through the wall for the air line. These oxygenated water tanks are overrated, especially when it comes time to clean them. I eventually gave the whole setup (including the fish) away.
@Jenavir
Provitamin is a real biochemical entity: a precursor for a functional vitamin. Usually they get metabolised into the active vitamin by the relevant body or organ it winds up in.
(You can e.g. google Provitamin e)
Provitamins has for instance the advantage of transportability as inactive, but can be “put to use” at specific sites at spcific localised targets or processes
The prefix pro usually means “before”
(like procaryote cells = before “true cells” as contrasted to eucaryote cells = the real “true cells”)
I suspect the PR misnomer is parasitizing the nice sound of PRO as “in favor of”
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Crikey, in the past I have always (at this time of year) gone on detox diets.
I have been known to spend extraordinary amounts of cash on products (from either the health shops or network systems) that promised to replenish ones system.
I was once again on the verge of going down that same route. Nevertheless, after reading this post I shall indeed have to reconsider the detox diet.
Thank-you OB, for this valuable piece of information.
Oh, Marie-Therese – I’m surprised you’d fall for the detox silliness! Think of all the money you’ll save now.
I hate, hate, hate, this detox nonsense. It’s incredible how many people believe in it. I was standing in line at a sandwich shop a couple of weeks ago. A man and woman in their 30s were behind me, picking over the menu to find the most “beneficial” vegetables to put on their sandwiches. The man said to his companion, “Yeah, I only eat blah-blah-blah type vegetables because they’re detoxifying. Man, it really works. I feel so energized and healthy after a detoxifying diet – I’ve never felt better in my life.”
I was so thoroughly annoyed I couldn’t stop myself from turning around and cocking an eyebrow at him. I know, I know, that’s rude, and I really did try to stop myself. But it was an involuntary reaction, as was the subsequent eye-rolling. He was baffled, of course, and probably had no idea how stupid he sounded. Argh.
Ha! Thanks, Josh, that sounds like a hilarious moment in the sandwich shop.
I think “oxygenated” water is different from the oxygenated water in aquaria. I think it’s special expensive “oxygenated” water for use only in small expensive bottles.
M-T, don’t do it! Spend your money on books or chocolates or cashmere socks instead.
You mean, my fish could’ve been making money on the side by bottling their water in small expensive bottles? And I never saw a penny of it. Ungrateful little wretches!
Finally, there is a campaign launched against this sort of scam. Now we need one launched against the “cosmeceutical” (cosmetic pharmaceutical) products. Open up any page of any women’s magazine and chances are there’ll be bogus “scientific” claims about some exorbitantly-priced face cream or shampoo.
No doubt he did feel better. Any diet that makes you eat lots of fresh vegetables, drink plenty of water, and lay off the Doritos (or their hippie equivalent) is probably a diet that’ll make the average person feel better.
Especially after the holidays. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve about had it with heavy, fatty foods for a while. But instead of “detox”, I’m going on what I think of as the Chicken Diet. It’s simple: before eating something, I think to myself, “Would I feed this to my chickens?” And if the answer is “no”, I think twice about eating it. That’s cheap and probably at least as “detoxifying” as any detox product on the market.
While most of you are right that the “oxygenated water” in the “alternative = snake oil” business is pure hogwash (hopefully pure, that is), there is a special variey of oxygen and oxygen-containing molecules that have properties making a difference, -in the real world.
Photochemical and a number of physiological reactions may strip a single electron from oxygen, -or more often i water: an -OH molecule, yielding singlet oxygen and hydoxyl radicals, respectively.
These entities are EXTREMEKY reactive.
Our cells have a dedicated enzyme system (Superoxide dismutase) to quenche the deletrious effects of these and similar molecules whenever they appear.
They can however be put to use as desinfectans when produced _in situ_
But the point WRT to the snake oil peddles is the extreme short life-span (a consequence of their reactivity.)
Even if they took the trouble of starting off with “singlet”-oxygenated water, the radicals disintegrates in a matter of milliseconds after their creation. Consequently the shelf life for any product once having contained some of these is correspondingly low.
Thus endeth the lesson :-)
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Cam, I bet there’s gold in ‘the Chicken diet.’ You have looked into the marketing possiblities, I trust? And you have of course patented it?
I really should, shouldn’t I? Except that to work, every diet book should come with three chicks for the reader to hand-raise, and that’d be cruel to the chicks. I don’t think it quite works unless there are specific critters you feel a bit protective of. On the other hand, that bit about working isn’t really salient in the patent-detox world, is it?
I used to joke about the Chakra Diet, in which you’d eat only foods whose colors corresponded with the chakras you wanted to invoke. If you stayed away from food coloring, it’d probably be reasonably healthful, actually, while at the same time being self-evidently goofy.
Then I saw that somebody’d actually come out with that diet in all apparent seriousness. Eep. There’s one I should have patented.
Well there you go, this seems to be exactly the technique – offer something reasonably healthful with a lot of added verbiage which triples the price, and bob’s your uncle. This stalk of detox broccoli will cleanse your energy holistics by filtering them through a paradigm of intense filoscrubbatics and subcutaneous aquasensitization; that will be 50 dollars please, do visit our crystalline foot massage on your way out.
Goodness, I feel refreshed, nourished, and purified already.
Here’s raising a cup of Clearspring Organic Miso Soup with Sea Vegetables to all of yiz. I must say it does taste very nice and much better than most instant soups. I feel healthier already.
Cassanders: thanks for the explanation!
And, haha, yes I did suspect that “provitamin” meant “we are in favor of vitamins.” (As opposed to the anti-vitamin forces out there?) But I’m glad to see there’s some accuracy there at least.